The shuttle era is ending. It's an era of incredible engineering, discovery, tragedy and
hope.

In all, five shuttles flew 135 missions.

The journey began in 1981, when Columbia proved that astronauts could reuse a spacecraft, and
will end when Atlantis returns from a 12-day mission. In between, the shuttles carried the first
woman into space as well as the first African-American.

They transported the pieces that helped build the International Space Station and delivered the
awe-inspiring Hubble Space Telescope.

The first untethered space walks took place outside Challenger's cargo bay. NASA lost 14 crew
members aboard Challenger and Columbia, tragedies that shook the space agency to its core and made
it refocus its safety efforts.

When this era ends, the debate will continue over the future of manned space missions. Should
NASA continue to send astronauts into space?

If so, where should they go and aboard what kind of craft? While NASA officials chart the
agency's future, we can look back over 30 years and marvel at the shuttle program's accomplishments
and mourn its losses. It's been a hell of a ride.